The Business of Open Source18 Kesä 2025

Building a Dual Growth Flywheel at GitLab with Nick Veenhof

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Nick Veenhof, Director of Contributor Success at GitLab. GitLab has probably the most well-articulated open source strategy out there, and we talked about the two main prongs of that strategy, the co-create strategy and the dual flywheel strategy. We also talked about incentivizing individuals versus incentivizing companies and how to build recognition system as part of the way to encourage people to contribute. We also talked about how to make sure that contributing is accessible — thinking about the “time to success” for contributors in a similar way as how you would think about time to value for software users.

The dual flywheel strategy

This strategy is based on the idea that as an open source company you want to simultaneously push growth in your open source user base and your customer base, and that the two should reinforce each other.

The co-create strategy

The co-create strategy involves encouraging paying customers to contribute to the open source project. In other words, customers who are already paying are encouraged to also invest engineering resources to improve the product. Nick said that this has obvious benefits for GitLab, but it also has benefits for the customers. They end up with a much better understanding of the product, and end up getting more out of the product then they would otherwise.

If you want to learn more, I highly recommend having a look at the GitLab Handbook, particularly the section on strategy.

And if you want more information about working with me, check out the options here.

Kokeile Premiumia

Nauti 14 päivää ilmaiseksi

Tilaa Premium

Jaksot(269)

The Complicated Calculus around Donating a Project to a Foundation with Omri Gazette

In the last episode of The Business of Open Source recorded at KubeCon Salt Lake City, I spoke with Omri Gazitt, co-founder and CEO of Aserto. Aserto has two open source project that it maintains, one...

15 Tammi 202524min

A Massive Head Start on Product Development with Open Source with Martin Mao

This special episode recorded live at KubeCon Salt Lake City last November is with Martin Mao, CEO and co-founder at Chronosphere.We talked about how M3 was foundational to the early history of Chrono...

10 Tammi 202520min

Finding Product-Market Fit with Wei Lien Dang

Happy new year everyone! There was a short break for Christmas + New Years the past two weeks, but this week I’m back with a fabulous episode with Wei Lien Dang, General Partner at Unusual Ventures an...

6 Tammi 202526min

Maintaining Control of your Brand with Ramiro Berrelleza

This week on The Business of Open Source, I have a special episode recorded on-site at KubeCon NA this fall, with Ramiro Berrelleza, the CEO of Okteto. We kicked off the conversation with a discussion...

18 Joulu 202424min

KubeCon Special Episode: Changing Culture with Software with Cole Kennedy

This week on the Business of Open Source, I have an episode recorded on-site at KubeCon SLC last month with Cole Kennedy, co-founder of TestifySec. We kicked off the conversation with a discussion abo...

11 Joulu 202417min

KubeCon Special Episode: Managing the Tension between Product and Project with Bobby DeSimone

Who pays for the future of infrastructure? In this special episode, I spoke to Bobby DeSimone, founder and CEO of Pomerium, about how he feels like infrastructure and security both have to be open sou...

4 Joulu 202418min

KubeCon NA Special Episode: The Connection Between Community Engagement and Revenue with Mark Fussell

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Mark Fussell, CEO and co-founder of Diagrid and co-creator of Dapr, in a special episode recorded on-site at KubeCon NA in Salt Lake City. We kic...

28 Marras 202423min

ATO Special Episode on Product Strategy with Elias Voelker

In this last special episode of The Business of Open Source recorded at All Things Open, I spoke with Elias Voelker, VP North America for CheckMK. We talked a lot about product strategy; when CheckMK ...

26 Marras 202417min

Kaikki yhdessä sovelluksessa

Kuuntele kaikki suosikkipodcastisi ja -äänikirjasi yhdessä paikassa.

Sinulle valikoitua sisältöä

Podme-sovelluksessa kokoat suosikkisi helposti omaan kirjastoosi. Saat meiltä myös kuuntelusuosituksia!

Jatka kuuntelua koska tahansa

Voit jatkaa siitä mihin jäit, myös offline-tilassa.

Premium

9,99 €/kk

Kaikki premium-podcastit
Ei mainoksia
Ei sitoutumista, peruuta koska tahansa

Aloita 14 päivän kokeilu

Premium

13,99 €/kk

Kaikki premium-podcastit
Ei mainoksia
Ei sitoutumista, peruuta koska tahansa
Yksi lisäkäyttäjä

Kokeile 14 päivää maksutta

Suosittua kategoriassa Liike-elämä ja talous

Tarinat ja äänet, joita rakastat kuunnella

Kuuntele kaikki suosikkipodcastisi ja -äänikirjasi

Lue lisää